- Slave to Love! – Mandy: #1252 (12 January 1991) – #1261 (16 March 1991)
- Translated into Dutch as “Zwaar verliefd” (Deeply Smitten) – Tina #9/1993-15/1993
- Art: Leslie Branton
Plot/Thoughts
In the later years of girl comics, romance/boy drama stories became a more popular feature. I suppose it was a sign of changing times, when fashion and pop stars were also becoming more common features. There is nothing wrong with some boy related plots, some were quite enjoyable but others didn’t exactly feature the most inspiring role models.
This story has an uninspiring, un-relatable, unsympathetic protagonist in my opinion. Gail Somers gets a crush on a boy Justin. Justin has a horrible lazy sister Andrea who decides to take advantage of Gail’s crush. She makes a deal to get Gail and Justin together if Gail becomes her slave for a month and a day.
Gail is somewhat under the delusion that the guy will take his younger sister’s advice on love. She blows off her friends gets in tons of trouble and doesn’t realise what an idiot she has been until the end. At this stage Justin has met a girl he actually talks to and has started dating her. Her friends are totally understanding of the situation afterwards.
Seriously they take that as a reasonable explanation for blowing them off. Oh it was all for guy well then of course everything’s okay, trying to get a boyfriend is way more important than our friendship!
None of the characters are that likeable. While there are a lot of stories where girls are being blackmailed or manipulated by nasty girls. Usually these girls are black mailed under the threat of their father getting fired or a family secret getting revealed or something, so it’s easy to sympathise with these characters. This is why I really find it hard to sympathise with the protagonist in this story, because it’s her own stupid choice.
The antagonist Andrea isn’t likeable but she’s just taking advantage of the situation. She laughs about how gullible Gail is, but turns out she’s not too bright herself. When she meets Gail’s cousin and falls for him she agrees to become Gail’s slave for a month and a day.
Seems Gail has a bit of a malicious streak in her as well and is enjoying taking her revenge on Andrea. As for Andrea… really what does she expect the outcome to be she was just in this situation with her brother, does she really see this ending with Gail’s cousin as her boyfriend!
